Chapter 10 #4
It is exactly the right question. Torsten's eyes light up, asked about his favorite subject, which is himself, and he launches into a monologue about trade routes and military reform and agricultural innovation that sounds rehearsed, as though he has given this speech before, to himself in a mirror, perhaps, or to the sycophants who surround him.
He talks about what he would build, what he would change, how he would reshape the clan in his image, and Evran mostly tunes it out.
He cannot afford to tune it out entirely, because he needs to maintain the appearance of rapt attention, so he keeps just enough of his focus on Torsten's words to catch the rhythms of them, the pauses that expect acknowledgment, the dramatic flourishes that demand reaction.
The rest of his mind is elsewhere, turning over what Torsten has revealed about himself without meaning to.
The rehearsed quality of the speech tells him that this is not a new ambition.
Torsten has been planning this, or at least fantasizing about it, for a long time.
The casual mention of his childhood visit to the Drakkari mountains suggests a connection to the clan that goes deeper than simple political interest. And the ease with which he describes dismantling Vaike's achievements and replacing them with his own speaks to a contempt for the current Warlord that is personal as well as political.
He nods. He makes an interested noise. He says "really?
" at a particularly dramatic pause and is rewarded with another five minutes of self-aggrandizement.
Torsten is so lost in the pleasure of hearing himself talk that he seems to forget he is supposed to be seducing someone, and Evran is grateful for the reprieve from performing desire he does not feel.
The fountain comes into view, and Evran can see the twins in the distance, Tria's braids bouncing as she gestures wildly at something, Arin beside her, steady as always.
The sight of them sends a wave of relief through Evran that is almost physical, a loosening of the tension in his shoulders and the knot in his stomach.
They are uncomplicated and warm and they want nothing from him but his company, and right now that feels more precious than anything else in this entire Keep.
Evran stops and turns to Torsten. He arranges his face into something he hopes reads as shy gratitude, with lowered eyes and slightly parted lips and the faintest flush on his cheeks that he has to will into existence by thinking about the most embarrassing moments of his life.
It is the hardest part of the performance yet, because gratitude is the one thing he cannot feel for this man, not now, not ever, and manufacturing it requires an emotional dishonesty that makes his skin crawl.
"Thank you," he says. "For accompanying me. It was really nice. Talking to you."
Torsten is visibly pleased. The sharp, acquisitive look is still there beneath the charm, but it is tempered by satisfaction, the deep, settled pleasure of believing things are going according to plan.
He does not realize that the plan is not his, that the satisfaction he feels is itself a component of someone else's strategy, and the irony of it would be amusing if the stakes were not so high.
"Anytime," Torsten says, and he steps a fraction closer. "I mean that."
Evran does not step back. He holds his ground and looks up at Torsten, who is taller, though only just, nothing compared to Vaike's height and breadth and warmth.
The comparison rises in his mind unbidden and he holds onto it, uses it as a tether, a reminder of what is real and what is performance.
Vaike's hands on him are warm and careful and always asking permission.
Torsten's proximity feels invasive, suffocating, the closeness of entitlement.
"When might I see you again?" he asks, his voice barely above a murmur.
Torsten's lips part. The hunger in his eyes is naked and unguarded, told yes and already thinking about what comes next.
There is nothing subtle about it, nothing restrained, and for a brief, terrible moment Evran sees past the charm and the confidence and the practiced smile to the thing underneath, the raw, consuming appetite of wanting and taking and never having been taught the difference between desire and entitlement.
"I'm playing cards tonight," he says. "In the ale room beneath the Keep. A small group. You should join me."
Evran hesitates, a calculated hesitation, the kind that says I want to but I shouldn't rather than I don't want to.
He lets the conflict play across his face, the pull between propriety and desire, between loyalty and longing, and he makes it look genuine because in a way it is, because the conflict he actually feels, the war between revulsion and necessity, maps perfectly onto the performance if he tilts it just so.
"I'm not much at cards," he says, which is categorically untrue. He's been learning from Aether, who is absolutely ruthless, and he's bested Vaike so thoroughly his husband refuses to play him any longer for fear of what it will cost him.
Torsten smiles, and it is the sharpest version of his smile yet, all teeth and promise. "I'll teach you."
Evran holds his gaze for one more beat, then drops his eyes and steps back. "Tonight, then."
"Tonight."
He turns and walks toward the fountain, toward the twins, toward the bright, uncomplicated company of two sixteen-year-olds who want nothing from him but his presence.
He does not look back. He can feel Torsten's gaze on him as he walks, can feel it pressing between his shoulder blades with the weight of expectation and hunger and everything Evran has deliberately cultivated in the last half hour, and he does not turn around.
He does not roll his eyes, though the urge is nearly physical.
He reaches the twins, and Tria spots him and waves wildly, her face breaking into a grin that is all warmth and no calculation, and Arin lifts a hand in quiet greeting with the reserved smile that Evran has learned means genuine pleasure.
Evran smiles at them, a real smile, the first one he has made all day that costs him nothing, and lets their company wash the taste of Torsten from his mouth.